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NEW AGE MOVEMENT
Charles Stanley
GENESIS 3:4-5
The serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
At first glance, it is absurd to think that the best explanation of New Age philosophy can be found in the Bible. Yet Satan first laid out his plan to Eve in the Garden of Eden. As the founding leader of this philosophy, Satan set out his ideas for Eve and for those who would follow as a three-part sermon that went something like this:
First, “you will be like God.” The term used for this philosophy is pantheism, or the doctrine that identifies God with the entire universe, including every particle, tree, table, animal, and person. God is all and all is God sums it up pretty well.
Second, “you will not die” is the part of the plan that has come to be known as New Age. Reincarnation could best be called the “round and round you go and where you stop nobody knows” way of life. It is the belief in the cyclical evolution of a person’s soul that passes from one body to another at death, continuing until the soul reaches a point of perfection.
The third point is extremely cunning, appealing to the intellect, with the promise of a sense of enlightenment that will ultimately lead to truth: “your eyes will be opened, and you will know good and evil.” Who wouldn’t want to know good from evil? For the New Age thinker, the more you know, the closer you come to truth. But not truth in the Christian sense. For in the New Age movement, truth is fluid. What is true for you may not be true for me.
Although Satan’s three-point objective for Eve sounded good, the truth became evident the moment she disobeyed God’s commandment. And the truth was not what Eve expected or wanted. Her eyes were opened, and what she discovered should have been a clue to the rest of humanity to come. She wasn’t God and she had a clear understanding of how desperately wrong she had been. Prior to her act of disobedience, Eve experienced something we haven’t known and will not know until we reach our eternal home in heaven with the Father. She lived in a world free of fear, guilt, rejection, crime, pain, and dishonesty. Yet she did what so many choose to do today; she listened to Satan’s lies. The woman who knew no guilt understood the ravages of disobedience and was never the same again.
What we see happening today in this “New” Age movement has been going on since the Garden of Eden. It is clear from Scripture that this movement should more appropriately be called the Old Age movement because of its inception in the Garden when Satan convinced Eve to move away from the truth to what sounded more appealing to her at the moment.
With so much at stake and so many misconceptions that go with the New Age philosophy, we must never lose our perspective on just who began this whole way of thinking. It was Satan, and anyone who tells you different is telling you a lie. It is essential to the New Age way of life that you believe in the second- and third-chance theory, that proponents devalue the consequence of sin. Many well-meaning people believe that mistakes (sin never enters their vocabulary) are not something they need to spend a lot of time worrying about since they’ll get another chance to get things right.
As the old hymn says, “My hope is built on Jesus’ blood.” Anything less is a pitiful failure that will be the eternal nightmare of those who die believing they’ll have another chance only to wake up to the error of their belief. As their followers grow in number, the evidence of lives in search of meaning is apparent. It is my obligation (and yours) as a child of God to be a light in this darkened age, to speak the truth in love. The task isn’t an easy one because our way is narrow, as Scripture says, but we are given the responsibility of sharing the truth with deceived people.
One of the most frustrating things that I encounter when trying to explain or define New Age thinking is that it incorporates so many different avenues of belief Whatever works for the particular person involved is usually the bottom line. However, those who claim to believe in this philosophy adhere to some basic tenets. One is the belief in reincarnation. In this view, when people die, they do not go to heaven or hell; they just come back to earth and take another shot at life. The quality of the next life depends on the quality of this one. Evil is punished next time around, and good is rewarded as well.
This “system” is based on the law of karma—people get what they deserve. An impersonal force keeps a record of credits and debits, based on behavior, leading to these conclusions:
The truly dangerous thing is that New Age philosophy is like a sponge. It can absorb all religions, cultures, and governments. There are no real contradictions, only imagined ones. They appear to be contradictions only to unenlightened ones. Jesus is a key figure in much of New Age thought and writing. In their desperate attempt to make Jesus fit into their philosophy, New Agers have found a way to discount what we see as indications of their mistaken ideas. You wifi never hear New Agers call Jesus a liar or a hoax. Instead, they preach that Jesus was not the Christ. Rather, the Christ spirit dwelt in Him and is available to us all. The Christ spirit becomes a term for the spirit available to all, the divine energy force of life.
Let’s look at the areas that Satan focused on. The last thing that he wanted was for Eve to know the truth, yet he deceived her by playing on her “intellect” with the assurance that she would be “smarter”—even to the point of having something to hold over Adam’s head. Recognizing this potential for pride in Eve, Satan pushed the right button, so to speak, and we know what happened. I’m sure that she would have traded her newfound intelligence for her old sense of naivete. She found out, as we know, there is only one God.
Those who believe in this New Age way of thinking say that Jesus is a way to God, not the way to God. The truth that escapes New Age thinkers is apparent in our belief that God is the Creator of heaven and earth, that Jesus is the Savior of humankind, and that sin results in death without Christ. Because of this “narrow” belief system, many find the New Age movement attractive because it appears to be so fair, so liberating. Good people make progress, bad people suffer, and people get what they deserve. For those who are uncomfortable with the idea of sin and its consequences, the New Age thinker quickly points out the belief in a system that allows a person to go through this life without too much worry because of getting another chance!
The contradiction between what New Agers say and their behavior is obvious and leads those of us who have accepted the truth of Scripture to the conclusion that they speak out of both sides of their mouths! Although they believe that good works lead to a better life next time around, helping someone who is struggling contradicts their belief system since that person is obviously getting what he or she deserves. Can you see their bind? Helping others is a good way to earn points for the next life; yet helping others is not good since that person deserves to struggle. I’m thankful that we don’t have to live in that bondage.
The bottom line for those who adhere to the New Age philosophy is the same as it is for every other religion, except Christianity. It boils down to salvation by works. Somewhere a force is keeping score, but we can never be sure what the rules are and where we fit in the sliding scale of good and bad. If we were to accept the teaching that New Agers espouse, we would have to agree that we have no need for a Savior; we just need another chance to get it right. The only problem is, we’re not sure what right is!
While it should be obvious to believers how mistaken this New Age philosophy is, it saddens me that a growing segment of society continues to fall for the lies that Satan began teaching in the Garden. Grace plays no part in the New Age thinker’s dogma. Everything depends on getting another chance to get it right. But there aren’t enough chances, and even if there were, we’d still miss the mark. That’s why God knew we needed a Savior, not a guru with nice-sounding words that give us warm, fuzzy feelings. The ttieir real dangers. harsh reality of hell—and our inability to work our way out of our eternal destiny without Christ—is the truth that we must continue to preach to our
Charles Stanley
GENESIS 3:4-5
The serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
At first glance, it is absurd to think that the best explanation of New Age philosophy can be found in the Bible. Yet Satan first laid out his plan to Eve in the Garden of Eden. As the founding leader of this philosophy, Satan set out his ideas for Eve and for those who would follow as a three-part sermon that went something like this:
First, “you will be like God.” The term used for this philosophy is pantheism, or the doctrine that identifies God with the entire universe, including every particle, tree, table, animal, and person. God is all and all is God sums it up pretty well.
Second, “you will not die” is the part of the plan that has come to be known as New Age. Reincarnation could best be called the “round and round you go and where you stop nobody knows” way of life. It is the belief in the cyclical evolution of a person’s soul that passes from one body to another at death, continuing until the soul reaches a point of perfection.
The third point is extremely cunning, appealing to the intellect, with the promise of a sense of enlightenment that will ultimately lead to truth: “your eyes will be opened, and you will know good and evil.” Who wouldn’t want to know good from evil? For the New Age thinker, the more you know, the closer you come to truth. But not truth in the Christian sense. For in the New Age movement, truth is fluid. What is true for you may not be true for me.
Although Satan’s three-point objective for Eve sounded good, the truth became evident the moment she disobeyed God’s commandment. And the truth was not what Eve expected or wanted. Her eyes were opened, and what she discovered should have been a clue to the rest of humanity to come. She wasn’t God and she had a clear understanding of how desperately wrong she had been. Prior to her act of disobedience, Eve experienced something we haven’t known and will not know until we reach our eternal home in heaven with the Father. She lived in a world free of fear, guilt, rejection, crime, pain, and dishonesty. Yet she did what so many choose to do today; she listened to Satan’s lies. The woman who knew no guilt understood the ravages of disobedience and was never the same again.
What we see happening today in this “New” Age movement has been going on since the Garden of Eden. It is clear from Scripture that this movement should more appropriately be called the Old Age movement because of its inception in the Garden when Satan convinced Eve to move away from the truth to what sounded more appealing to her at the moment.
With so much at stake and so many misconceptions that go with the New Age philosophy, we must never lose our perspective on just who began this whole way of thinking. It was Satan, and anyone who tells you different is telling you a lie. It is essential to the New Age way of life that you believe in the second- and third-chance theory, that proponents devalue the consequence of sin. Many well-meaning people believe that mistakes (sin never enters their vocabulary) are not something they need to spend a lot of time worrying about since they’ll get another chance to get things right.
As the old hymn says, “My hope is built on Jesus’ blood.” Anything less is a pitiful failure that will be the eternal nightmare of those who die believing they’ll have another chance only to wake up to the error of their belief. As their followers grow in number, the evidence of lives in search of meaning is apparent. It is my obligation (and yours) as a child of God to be a light in this darkened age, to speak the truth in love. The task isn’t an easy one because our way is narrow, as Scripture says, but we are given the responsibility of sharing the truth with deceived people.
One of the most frustrating things that I encounter when trying to explain or define New Age thinking is that it incorporates so many different avenues of belief Whatever works for the particular person involved is usually the bottom line. However, those who claim to believe in this philosophy adhere to some basic tenets. One is the belief in reincarnation. In this view, when people die, they do not go to heaven or hell; they just come back to earth and take another shot at life. The quality of the next life depends on the quality of this one. Evil is punished next time around, and good is rewarded as well.
This “system” is based on the law of karma—people get what they deserve. An impersonal force keeps a record of credits and debits, based on behavior, leading to these conclusions:
- <!--[endif]-->In the end, you win because you get chance after chance.<!--[endif]-->
- <!--[if !supportLists]-->Time is a perpetual merry-go-round.
- <!--[endif]--><!--[if !supportLists]-->You determine your own destiny.
- <!--[endif]--><!--[if !supportLists]-->The problem is not sin; it is ignorance.
- <!--[endif]-->Enlightenment is the path of spiritual progress.
The truly dangerous thing is that New Age philosophy is like a sponge. It can absorb all religions, cultures, and governments. There are no real contradictions, only imagined ones. They appear to be contradictions only to unenlightened ones. Jesus is a key figure in much of New Age thought and writing. In their desperate attempt to make Jesus fit into their philosophy, New Agers have found a way to discount what we see as indications of their mistaken ideas. You wifi never hear New Agers call Jesus a liar or a hoax. Instead, they preach that Jesus was not the Christ. Rather, the Christ spirit dwelt in Him and is available to us all. The Christ spirit becomes a term for the spirit available to all, the divine energy force of life.
Let’s look at the areas that Satan focused on. The last thing that he wanted was for Eve to know the truth, yet he deceived her by playing on her “intellect” with the assurance that she would be “smarter”—even to the point of having something to hold over Adam’s head. Recognizing this potential for pride in Eve, Satan pushed the right button, so to speak, and we know what happened. I’m sure that she would have traded her newfound intelligence for her old sense of naivete. She found out, as we know, there is only one God.
Those who believe in this New Age way of thinking say that Jesus is a way to God, not the way to God. The truth that escapes New Age thinkers is apparent in our belief that God is the Creator of heaven and earth, that Jesus is the Savior of humankind, and that sin results in death without Christ. Because of this “narrow” belief system, many find the New Age movement attractive because it appears to be so fair, so liberating. Good people make progress, bad people suffer, and people get what they deserve. For those who are uncomfortable with the idea of sin and its consequences, the New Age thinker quickly points out the belief in a system that allows a person to go through this life without too much worry because of getting another chance!
The contradiction between what New Agers say and their behavior is obvious and leads those of us who have accepted the truth of Scripture to the conclusion that they speak out of both sides of their mouths! Although they believe that good works lead to a better life next time around, helping someone who is struggling contradicts their belief system since that person is obviously getting what he or she deserves. Can you see their bind? Helping others is a good way to earn points for the next life; yet helping others is not good since that person deserves to struggle. I’m thankful that we don’t have to live in that bondage.
The bottom line for those who adhere to the New Age philosophy is the same as it is for every other religion, except Christianity. It boils down to salvation by works. Somewhere a force is keeping score, but we can never be sure what the rules are and where we fit in the sliding scale of good and bad. If we were to accept the teaching that New Agers espouse, we would have to agree that we have no need for a Savior; we just need another chance to get it right. The only problem is, we’re not sure what right is!
While it should be obvious to believers how mistaken this New Age philosophy is, it saddens me that a growing segment of society continues to fall for the lies that Satan began teaching in the Garden. Grace plays no part in the New Age thinker’s dogma. Everything depends on getting another chance to get it right. But there aren’t enough chances, and even if there were, we’d still miss the mark. That’s why God knew we needed a Savior, not a guru with nice-sounding words that give us warm, fuzzy feelings. The ttieir real dangers. harsh reality of hell—and our inability to work our way out of our eternal destiny without Christ—is the truth that we must continue to preach to our
